When did smooth jazz start?

Improvisation is the essential element of Jazz. If it has improv, it's jazz.
Smooth Jazz takes the musical structure from Pop, which has little to no improvisation.

 

The problem, again--I'm basically just repeating what I said above--is that there is very little stuff conventionally called smooth jazz that has no improvisation. In fact, I'm not sure that there's any.

Yes, smoth jazz has more prominent pop elements--that's one of the main other genres it's fusing to jazz, along with contemporary R&B, kind of an AOR approach to funk, etc.--but that doesn't mean that it has no improv.

Maybe you could try coming up with some example(s) of smooth jazz that has no improv.

 

Would Ella Fitzgerald's vocal scatting be considered smooth jazz? That's an improvisational sound but it changes the context of the original jazz art form it's inspired by. It comes across more as a novelty "Pop Art" effect because she is mimicking a traditional jazz style of riffing with a non-vocal jazz instrument.

If Ella is not singing jazz then what genre of music is she playing?

 

It's good you left out "I Sing The Body Electric". It's so ornate and dense it makes Coltrane sound like pop music. I couldn't take it.

 

Tell ya what...I'd love to find a radio/internet radio station that plays CLASSIC "Smooth Jazz". Linchpin artists would include Bob James, John Klemmer, Crusaders, Grover Washington, Jr., George Benson, Spyro Gyra, Chuck Mangione, Larry Carlton, David Sanborn, The Rippingtons, etc. Throw in a little Fusion from Weather Report, Herbie's Headhunters era, etc. Years would range Early '70s-Mid '80s. It would basically mirror what WRVR-FM sounded like in NYC around that time (before they flipped to Lite-FM).

 

There was a documentary I saw on jazz where Miles was explaining the reasons he went electric where he said something to the effect (not an exact quote)..."There's only so much I can play with the minimalist "cool" jazz style I was doing in the '50's & '60's. I just needed to move on to more challenging ways to play jazz." What came out of that was definitely not smooth jazz.

 

Paul Whiteman? Red Nichols? Ben Pollack?

 

I agree. In 1976, Breezin' by George Benson made smooth jazz a thing.

 

Smooth jazz started with Gregorian chants. The weird progressions in many of them, not to mention the strange intervals you get from the harmonies, sound definitely like jazz to me.

So I say the 9th and 10th centuries.

 

Diana Krall is a 'smooth jazz' aficionado.

 

I'll take the heat.

Steely Dan was my "introduction" to jazz - or what I thought was jazz. Thankfully, Don and Walt were heavy into track information and "who played what" so it was an easy jump from, say, "Kid Charlemagne" to showing off my newfound jazz chops to the guys in the dorm by playing the new Larry Carlton album. Which lead me into the smooth(?) jazz wormhole populated by the good (Jeff Lorber, Pat Metheny Weather Report) ) and the not-so-good (Spyro Gyra). Hey, the chicks loved Spyro Gyra - they thought I was some kind of beatnik intellectual. My Mom was simply thankful that I stopped playing "Some Girls".

We even had a smoooooooooooth jaaaaazzz station in Phoenix.

Good times.

 

Anyone that listens to Weather Report and hears Smooth Jazz has got the volume turned down too low!

 

Still plenty of crazy responses here. If you aren't exactly sure what is meant by smooth jazz then please listen to this to get an idea before blurting out more ridiculous examples. This is as typical and average an example I can think of.

Richard Elliot - I'm Loving You

 

Al Foster argued that the music he played with Miles in the 1970s was decidedly NOT jazz. Even Miles himself said in a later interview that 'jazz' is a label that, according to him, white folks use to categorize certain musical form. Miles said that black folks use the word 'jazz' not to describe music, but to describe something done to other things -- clothing, food, etc. (Miles used an example 'try this coffee, I jazzed it up a little')

 

Perfect example, thank you for sharing. Basically, as this example amply illustrates, the blueprint for typical smooth jazz harkens back to "A Remark You Made" from Weather Report "Heavy Weather".

That's why I thought smooth jazz was born in the latter part of 1970s, and was surprised to hear how nascent it was as early as back in 1974 when Bill Evans cut "Intuition" with Eddie Gomez.

 

Please refrain from your condescending hipster attitude. You've been living in Austin, Tx too long. I got out as fast as I could and I'm the better for it.

That YouTube example is the worst it can get. You have no idea what came before it.

 

There's another angle you youngsters might've overlooked, the coming of the CD. It seemed like CD's and smooth jazz were made for each other. There are a few exceptions, but more than anything else, smooth jazz was a product, created to feed all those new, shiny CD players. Surely anyone listening to the radio in the mid 80's heard these new stations touting 'smooth lite CD something or other'. Not to get too Orwellian, but I can't think of another audio product that was so vigorously shoved down the public's throat as the CD was.

 

David Sanborn certainly made the best of capitalizing on smooth jazz and the cd.

 

About 5 minutes after jazz was invented. The leader of the group said" That was great! Now lets try it again, and this time play it so squares will buy it."

 

Good for you chief.

 

Actually, there was one years ago with Tim Meadows doing a "Quet Storm" DJ. Sure, it's not exactly either of those two jazz designations, but at that time in history, "Quiet Storm" is exactly the sort of audience then, that they are targeting today with toothless jazz formats (now, that's a format designation for the future..."Toothless Jazz"! "All your jazz favorites, without all the bop and scattin'!" "The one station everybody in the office who doesn't know what jazz really is, can agree on!")

 

Hmmm...........cigarette butts!

 

I think a lot of people in this thread don't seem to understand, these discriptors are of no use to anybody in the real world, because these are marketing terms in order to have an easy name to call a radio station. Is Miles "smooth jazz"? Well, during various charts or measures, yes. That doesn't mean he belongs in a box. The "box", is only used in the service of describing audiences to clients, listeners to ratings services, and overly-generalized music traits to General Managers talking to consultants.

Had this same sort of conversation in another thread, explaining why "soft rock" was more of merely a slogan or positioner to differentiate your "soft rock" station to the one across the street who plays Steppenwolf (..."and would be totally-inappropriate for you to spend your advertising dollar there, Mr. Dress-Shop-Owner"). The guy I was trying to make sense to, was adamant that "soft rock" has been around since any rock music was played "soft", therefiore it IS a form of "rock", therefore The Carpenters should be eligible to be allowed in a Rock-celebrating organization, as if by playing dirty with semantics, that would cause all rock fans to welcome them in. This is why you don't argue with the bouncer outside a dance club caled "Cherry", that they should play Neil Diamond, because he wrote a song once that used that word!

People can dither all they want about what "Smooth Jazz" is, and how it is not "cool jazz" or whatever breaks these categories down. But, trying to make your case based on a marketing term, is a real easy way to fool yourself into thinking you are an expert, of something most people don't need to know the difference of. "Look, I have Coleman, AND Turrentine on THE SAME RECORD CHANGER - what is the correct term for that...?" "Ummm, two jazz records on your turntable...?" "Bingo - next-!"

 

There are Duke Ellington compositions that are entirely scored, with no improvised sections. Would you consider those to be "not jazz," because there is no improvisation?

Also, there are musical traditions that feature improvisation that are not jazz.

 

Agreed, and some of these artists did stuff outside of smooth jazz. Dave Grusin, for example, did excellent arrangements for Brasil '66. I also love his scores for the films The Friends of Eddie Coyle, the Yakuza, and Three Days of the Condor.